MagnetoRN wrote:What I had in mind was something so simple that could be applied to all game modes (even campaign) without really affecting the gameplay/balance of the game.

Just to throw out your illusions: being able to recruit without having your leader at the castle will affect the balance. As you wanted, it allows your leader to fight (or use other abilities like healing/leadership) much farther away from the castle – but the effect of that will vary by faction and leader.

Tad_Carlucci wrote:The proposed new unit also sounds like something which could be spammed to harry and delay an opponent. Give it a couple more movement points and change its icon to a bat?

In order to prevent either spam buying or sending your recruiter out to take other castles he has a super poor attack (6-1) only around 20hp and only 3moves. This is not much for the 11 gold you still have to pay.

It should work on the tablet but you need to intsall The Balance Mod as well as The Balance Mod Campaign to make it work for campaigns. Tell me what you think when you have played it. I have made it so that the ai in campaigns doesn't recruit this unit at all for now.

Man, I've played some missions with the mod, and I must say that the game is so much more fun now! Leading the battle with you hero gives the game a whole other feeling of excitement. The way it was before, though already very good, doesn't get even close.

For the Recruiter:

- I thought that 3 moves were a bit excessive, since it can still move pretty far like that (and 1 move is enough to get it to the keep the following round).- Is it possible to limit the number of Recruiters to the number of Castles avaible on the map, like the guy suggested below?- maybe we could remove the ZOC of this unit and lower its hp a bit (lets say to 10) just to prevent any usefulness in battle and raise its chances do die on 1 attack.

Thanks a lot, man!

Last edited by MagnetoRN on December 12th, 2016, 10:25 am, edited 3 times in total.

I once tested a unit for my self, who could recruit units by right click (similar to the Era of Magic addon). Even though he had low hp, only a 5-1 attack and the Ai couldn't use his ability the computer always spammed this unit because of its low costs. Even human players might use it just his its zoc or delaying skills.If you want to make it useless in battle you could limit its movement on castle only. Human players won't recruit more than 1 per castle, since it would otherwise permanetnly block recruit spot (or atleast until it's dead). Not sure how the Ai would handle it though.

Just to throw out your illusions: being able to recruit without having your leader at the castle will affect the balance. As you wanted, it allows your leader to fight (or use other abilities like healing/leadership) much farther away from the castle – but the effect of that will vary by faction and leader.

You couldn't throw out anything with that point. Whatever your can do away from the castle with your hero, you can also do with other units, so it's doesn't unbalance anything. Also, even the heroes are balanced when you weight HP, Damage during different times of the day, ranged attacks (physical and magical) and abilities, and it is risky to put them on the fron-line, because they can be killed more easily.

Vyncyn wrote:I once tested a unit for my self, who could recruit units by right click (similar to the Era of Magic addon). Even though he had low hp, only a 5-1 attack and the Ai couldn't use his ability the computer always spammed this unit because of its low costs. Even human players might use it just his its zoc or delaying skills.If you want to make it useless in battle you could limit its movement on castle only. Human players won't recruit more than 1 per castle, since it would otherwise permanetnly block recruit spot (or atleast until it's dead). Not sure how the Ai would handle it though.

I wanted that from the beginning, but I thought it would be too hard to do (actually I wanted a keep/castle conquest mode, but that's kind of impossible right now, so a new unit to recruit was the next best thing). One per castle, and only be able to move on the castle would be excellent, if doable.

Hi, I thought about not allowing it to leave the castle but 2 movement is fine it will never go anywhere useful... I reduced it hp to 13 it now dies versus almost any other lvl 1 unit i have and increased its cost to 18 now. Personally i think the cost was the main problem before, now that he's expensive you might as well buy ANY other lvl 1 unit and it will be far more effective.

Vyncyn wrote:I once tested a unit for my self, who could recruit units by right click (similar to the Era of Magic addon). Even though he had low hp, only a 5-1 attack and the Ai couldn't use his ability the computer always spammed this unit because of its low costs.

I think the increased cost should solve the ai spam buying him, as for his power he actually IS a leader so if the ai or human puts him on a castle he can recruit!

Currently in campaigns i haven't allowed ai to purchase this unit to help the ai not send out their leader and just get him killed.

Vyncyn wrote:Even human players might use it just his its zoc or delaying skills.

Most campaigns heavily incentivize using your hero farther afield by making them have leadership - not only do they make your surrounding units better, but if they get experience of their own, they get even better at it. The effect is slightly mitigated by how most heroes cap at level 3, same as everything else, but for a majority of the campaign it works like that. Just as well, in most campaigns there's no /reason/ to keep your hero on the keep indefinitely - I find that I recruit almost all the units I'll be using in the scenario in the first five or six turns, and then I move the hero to catch up with the front lines because why not.

In multiplayer it's a bit different, since of course losing your leader is instant game over, and you need to more or less constantly replenish your forces, your hero typically is anchored to a keep - from time to time I'll push them out as far as they can to ward off too much intrusion but they tend to stay at the back. A lot of MP maps solve this by making keeps located throughout the map and closer to the front lines.

That is true, many MP maps (especially mainline) have multiple keeps allowing your leader to continue recruiting from closer towards the battle. Overall, however, i believe the recruiter unit is a good strategic addition, But it does unfortunately give the possibility of instead of your leader joining the fight - your leader fleeing the battle. I have seen a few times people recruit a recruiter and hide in a cave or on a mountain somewhere which can be quite annoying when playing with fog or shroud

Do you have any suggestions for how this can be improved in the balance mod, so as to not allow players to flee?